What a Girl Wants – What women want from feminism

Feminism has got issues. A large chunk of what is written under the subject of ‘feminism’ is intellectually dishonest, dogmatic and aggressive.

But MOST importantly much of feminism is serving feminism, it is not serving women. The result is a generation (or two or three) of women who will tell you ‘I’m a feminist, but…’ and then proceed to seriously rip the heart out of it or, worse, dismiss it as mostly irrelevant.

Women want to fully engage in the world, what was and still often is a man’s world, while at the same time being women. That is what women want and feminism’s purpose is to deliver this reality.

Feminism has been hoodwinked. It has made the mistake of believing that women need to more fully adopt what are effectively male values and principles in order to be more fulfilled as human beings.

I have heard it stated (or something to the affect) by feminists that ‘men are human, women are not’ – this being a fundamental criticism of patriarchal society.

There is a reason for this. Men created the world, namely the public sphere, and they made it for themselves. By doing so they defined what being ‘human’ was.

The definition of ‘human’, having been created by men, was exclusively male and the ideal human was simply a masculine ideal – always self-determined, always rational, dominant over others and nature, a selfish rational actor looking to fulfil their self-interest.

Men made just about everything – law, concepts of property, rights, liberties, the concept of the citizen, obligations, business, transaction, the concept of freedom even. These are the institutions and principles that defined the world of this masculine ‘human’. All these institutions, all this world, is based on the presumption of masculine values and interests. The foundation of the world, the public sphere, is male.

In the last 100 years or so we have extended this franchise to women. But it’s a male franchise.

As a result we are in the situation that a women’s public life – her work, her business, her politics, her life as citizen – is masculine in nature. In effect women have taken up what still is an essentially male persona in order that she may take part in public life which has been traditionally masculine in nature.

You can see how this male persona, in order for women to engage in a world built for men, is all a bunch of ill-fitting hand-me-downs – essentially male concepts made for men not women, but nonetheless thrust upon women. Really what this was, was a quick fix, so that women could take part in the public sphere without the public sphere being rebuilt and repurposed for women as well as men.

The problem is much of feminism has completely fallen for the idea that women must fully take ownership of these hand-me-down male concepts (this whole system that was not made for women, it was made for men).

Feminism has fallen for the concept of ‘human’ as defined by men.

It advocates that women be treated and become ‘human’ all the while this definition of ‘human’ is a male definition. It has been hoodwinked.

Feminism believes if women adopt these self-actualized ‘human’ characteristics, these essentially male characteristics developed by men – self determined, always rational, dominant, rational actor looking to fulfil their self-interest – all this stuff that is the basis and presumption of Western laws and politics – women will become the fully actualized female human beings they truly are. But this is all male shit, and highly flawed as well. But feminism has convinced itself and many women that fully adopting this ill-fitting hand-me-down male franchise, this flawed definition of ‘human’ is what women should do.

The adoption of a more male persona by women in order to engage in this essentially masculine world was and is a necessity in order that they be able to take part in it. But it is not necessary nor beneficial that women wholly adopt these largely masculine values. For starters such masculine values and principles are not necessarily good.

But apart from any argument about what is necessary or beneficial, the fact is that a majority of women appear to wish to preserve femininity and at least some aspects of what can be described as traditional womanhood.

Some of the most successful and outwardly dominant women in the work place and other domains of the ‘public sphere’ who dominate their male rivals, still often want to be traditionally feminine in their personal lives. They still want to be girls, they want to be sex objects sometimes, they want to be traditionally feminine, they want to fuck doggy style without feeling guilty, some want traditional weddings, some want to have fake nails, they want to feel the ‘male gaze’ sometimes, they may want to be strippers, they may want to even feel submissive in their personal lives sometimes, they want to be ‘girls’. But they also want the freedom to engage in this world. This is what a girl wants…

To have the right to be a feminine being while having the freedom to engage in this (what is still a man’s) world and be taken seriously just like men. It is feminism’s job to make this a reality.